This week, Chip, Nicole and I will be attending Microsoft's MIX '08 conference in Las Vegas. This event runs March 4 through March 7 and typically includes a number of major announcements from Microsoft, as well as sessions and speakers covering a variety of creative, UX, and technology topics. For example, last year, Microsoft used this event to launch the first version of Silverlight and Expression Studio.

The three of us will be posting to this blog throughout the week, sharing what we learn, as we learn it. We may even throw in some photos and video for good measure.

In addition to attending the sessions, both Chip and I will be participating in panels with a number of colleagues from other agencies and related firms. We're both thrilled to have this opportunity and hope you check out the webcast which will be live about 24 hours after the session. Check www.visitmix.com for details. Following are the details for each of our sessions:

Paul's panel:

What Is the face of the next Web?

Wednesday, March 5 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM Pacific

Speaker(s): Chris Bernard (MODERATOR), Paul Dain (Tribal), Anthony Franco (EffectiveUI), Tjeerd Hoek (Frog), Mark Kurtz (Gage), Garrick Schmitt (Avenue A | Razorfish)

Description: Web 2.0 appeared almost overnight from innovative uses of technology to break through the traditional HTML/JS browser ceilings. But what comes next? What is the face of the next web? What are the expectations for user interaction and experience? What about a mobile web?

Chip's panel:

Real World Design: Working with Silverlight and WPF in the Design Studio

Thursday, March 6 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM Pacific

Speaker(s): Beau Ambur (Metaliq), Chip Aubry (Tribal), Chris Bernard (MODERATOR), Nathan Dunlap (Identity Mine), Rich Weston (Neudesic)

Description: Silverlight and WPF represent a new way for designers and developers work together. But what happens in a professional practice that's focused more on employing designers than developers and using Macs versus PCs for much of their daily design work? Join us as we find out how practitioners from companies like Tribal, Projekt202, Metaliq and Identity Mine discuss the learning curves and the workflow that they adapted with their visual designers and rich interactive developers to get up to speed with Expression Studio, XAML and Silverlight. You'll hear the unvarnished truth about the challenges and rewards of how Silverlight is enabling the digital design practice.

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- Paul